Sevillano Olives
California’s very large green table olive: Sevillian by origin, the giant of the American can.
The Sevillano — also called the Spanish Queen — is California’s great big table olive. Descended from the Sevillian Gordal of Spain, it is very large, crisp and meaty, and it became the backbone of the Californian table-olive industry: the giant green olive you find stuffed with pimento or cured into the familiar canned ripe black olive. Where the Mission is California’s historic olive, the Sevillano is its showpiece.
- Origin
- California · USA (via Seville)
- Also called
- Spanish Queen
- Type
- Table olive
- Colour
- Green to black
- Size
- Very large
- Texture
- Crisp, meaty
- Best for
- Stuffed green & canned olives
The American showpiece olive
When California built its table-olive industry, it wanted size and crunch, and the Sevillano delivered both. Brought from Seville, it is among the largest olives grown, firm and fleshy — ideal for pitting and stuffing, or for the lye-cured, oxidised “California ripe” black olive that fills American cans. It is grown across the Central Valley alongside the historic Mission.
The uniform matte-black “California ripe” olive is usually a green Sevillano (or Manzanillo) darkened by oxidation and stabilised with iron salts — not a naturally tree-ripened black olive. It is mild and pleasant, but it is a manufactured colour, not a ripeness. A naturally cured Sevillano is green, crisp and far more characterful.